A Mother's Goodbye (Part 1 of the Melinda Chronicles)
by shoboni
Summary: Sad one-shot spawned from a weird head-cannon that I had to get out of my system.


_A gentle rain falls like tears onto the fresh dirt as a orange-furred hand traces the name etched into the stone. Her hand wanders over every letter and over the familiar logo of two intertwined tails that had become a fixture in her life over the last 70-odd years._

They say that a mother should never outlive her children, that no parent should ever have to endure that pain, but It's a feeling I've become all too familiar with and something that never gets any easier.

That's why even though I knew this day would come like it it always does, I can't believe you're really gone. I knew from the minute I found you, just a crying baby abandoned in a forgotten cabin on the edge of the woodlands that I would someday watch you drift away just like all the others I've raised while I was destined to keep on living.

Of course, I'm barren just like all of my kind, but that did not matter before and and didn't matter with you. You were my son, even if not by blood and nothing could ever change that or make me regret one minute of the time I spent by your side.

I watched you grow, and watched your natural gift as an engineer bloom. Even from a young age you were brilliant and had a way with machines of all shapes and sizes. I still remember you tearing down and reassembling every appliance in the house in your pursuit of knowledge and curiosity to know how everything worked.

I also remember your other unique gift well, your twin tails. I almost panicked when you were young and somehow figured out you could use them to fly. You kind of floated around the house for weeks and regularly almost gave me heart-attacks until you got bored and started making a little less use of that ability.

I did my best to protect you from those that always seemed to find pleasure in bullying you and I was your shoulder to cry on when they had teased you or broke your inventions. I remember too many nights when it was all I could to do calm you down as you shook in my arms. They called you mutant, freak, and all manner of other names so vile that it was all I could do keep from losing my temper and putting the fear of God into them myself when you told me.

I tried to keep reminding you not to be ashamed of how you were born, no matter what they said. I reminded you that these gifts were something for you be proud of and that they were all just ignorant of that. Reassuring you that you weren't alone, that you had me and that someday you'd find people that understood and make friends.

It was something I understood all too well, and I remember the night I had to finally explain my gift to you.

I had… There was a fight and though I survived I was severely wounded and barely managed to crawl home and through the door before collapsing in the middle of the floor, and succumbing to my wounds. I had lost so much blood that they couldn't heal before the shock to my system stopped my heart. From a biological standpoint I was dead and you returned home before I could re-awaken and clean myself up.

You must have found me that way, not breathing and looking like a bloody mess. The first thing I remember as I came to was you on the floor next to me, curled up against me and begging me to wake up. My first thought was how scarred and upset you must have been, and I cursed myself for letting you find me like this and that this was how you hand to find out.

You must've heard me start to breathe because I remember you calling for me,

"M-mom?"

You clung to my side as I forced myself to sit up and took a deep breath. I gently put my around you, pulled you closer.

"Miles, it's okay."

"Y-you wouldn't wake up, and you're hurt, there's blood everywhere. You weren't even breathing. I-I thought." He stopped there, once again breaking down in a fit of sobs.

At that point I noticed the red staining your fur, it must have happened when you curled up next to me. How could I have been so stupid?

I tried my best to calm you down and show you that I was okay, "Honey, I'm fine. I know this looks bad but I'm I promise that I'm okay."

"Mom, t-there's blood everywhere and you look like you've been cut."

"Miles, I need you open your eyes and look at me for a minute, okay?"

You flinched through the tears as you looked up. I guess even if I was fully conscious and alert, I wasn't a pretty sight and it must have been hard for you to see me like that.

"See honey, I'm fine. There's not even a scratch." I gently pulled aside the fabric of my shirt where a wound had once been across my stomach, and where a good deal of the blood likely came from. The white of my stomach fur was still caked with drying blood, but the cut had obviously healed. You reached over, unsure and I nodded. I could feel you relax as you felt the spot for yourself and realized that I was telling the truth.

You were still shaken up, but you seemed calmer, "If you're not hurt, where did the blood come from and why weren't you moving?"

I explained it all. I told you all about immortals and our healing factor. I told you how some immortals are bad and that the good guys like me sometimes have to fight them to protect people. I even explained how I was over a thousand years old and how we keep it a secret to protect ourselves and those around us.

You listened intently and I smiled when your eyes started to light-up, in your eyes it must have been like your mom was some super-hero like the ones in your comics. I was just relieved to see you smiling, despite the fact we both looked like something from a crime-scene.

We both managed to get cleaned up (you, with my help) and managed to find an old rug to cover up the stain on the carpet until it could be replaced. I remember you curling up next to me on the couch until you passed out, you must have still been worried despite everything being sorted out.

Things weren't always a mess though, I remember when Sonic came along and I was thrilled that you had started to make friends, and started to grow into a hero. As much as he could get on my nerves, I think I considered him a son just as much you considered him a brother. God, I imagine I'd never hear the end of it if he was here to hear me say that but it's truth.

I still remember the day I first spoke to him and told him that I'd strangle him if anything happened to you, but I think he knew I was just happy you made a friend and was just being a mother.

Not long after that Knuckles came along and despite butting heads, he became a member of the team and just as loyal a friend to both of you as you were to each other. I think I shocked him the first we met and I spoke to him the old language, something he didn't expect from an outsider because it was considered dead to everyone but his bloodline. I had to cover that for the time being with a claim that I had spent time studying ancient languages in university. He believed it, to my shock.

I still remember the day I let both of them in on my secret. There had been an accident and they both thought I was dead, and went looking for you out of worry when you disappeared for a few hours. I guess they assumed the shock made you wonder off. Of course, you had come to meet me on Angel Island so we could plan what to do next. had asked you meet at the shrine because I knew they might turn up there and it was time to tell them. They found us talking around nightfall and Sonic's reaction was not expected, but understandable.

"SWEET MOBIUS, IT'S A GHOST" He had already climbed one of the pillars that surrounded the central altar, Knuckles had just fainted the minute he saw me.

You had convinced Sonic that I WASN'T any sort of walking undead or vengeful spirit by the time Knuckles had come to, but explanations had to wait because he promptly saw me and fainted again.

It was a fun time.

You made other friends like Amy and Cream, the later of which become your wife years much later on.. Can't say I was surprised by that as much I was surprised that Sonic finally fell for Amy.

I think I spent most of your wedding day alternating between crying and jumping with joy because you had come so far and were finally finding happiness of some kind. I do apologize if it was embarrassing having me and your then-future mother-in-law clinging to each other and crying in the front row. That always happens to me at weddings.

The years flew by after that until you and her had your first child, who of course called me Aunt Mel until she was old enough to understand that I was her grandma. Her brother followed. You did a little better Sonic, who managed to forget Amy when rushing to the hospital the day he became a father. I still never thought that was actually possibly until he proved me wrong, and I told all about how in over a millennium of living I had never seen someone actually do that.

I watched them grow as I did you. I saw them through school and college, and then finally through their own weddings and the birth of their children, your grandchildren and I'll never regret that I could be there to see it.

Time isn't always kind though, I watched you and your friends grow older the whole time and watched…

I watched time and time again as the moment I fear most about my relationships with mortals came, and every single one was called home, one by one.

I-I just. I know this is how it has to happen, that it's how it always happens, but I always feel so helpless. I would've protected you from anything, but with all my strength and all my skills with a blade, it was the one thing I couldn't protect you from that took you from me. The one enemy I couldn't fight and will never be able to. I know it's so selfish to think this way because you're in a better place now, but it just hurts so bad.

I guess that is my price to pay for being immortal. I held you in my arms as a baby, not long after you entered this world and breathed your first breath, and I held you again as you breathed your last and you quietly passed into the next. The fact I was able to be there for you until the end is one of the few solaces I have, that you didn't have to die alone and that I could ease your fears of the what came next.

You went last, and so I can take another in the hope that wherever you are, your friends were waiting for you and welcomed you home. I know the man you considered a brother went nearly ten years before you, and your wife went five. I know how much you missed them both dearly and now you'll all be re-united. As much as it hurt me to see you go and as much as I damn myself, a part of me of me knows that you had nothing to fear from being called home and that I had to let you go.

I don't remember everything from the first time I crossed over and was sent back, but I remember I was in a place that I did not fear and I remember it was a kind voice that told me it wasn't my time. I also know that the voice belonged to someone that hadn't forsaken me, but instead had granted me a gift and intended that I have a purpose. I remember telling you that and describing the glimpse of paradise I saw as you began to slip away and grew scared. I wanted you to know that this was not an ending, but instead the opening of a new chapter.

In that moment you were a child that needed his mother, just as you were when you came into this world.

I just want you to know that even now with my heart breaking, I don't regret any of it and I'd live every second with you again, even if it meant suffering this pain once more.

Goodbye, Miles, and know that I will always love you. You may be a hero to Mobius, but to me you'll always be my son.


End file.
